Rosalee and Lucky
by NullNoMore
Summary: "The ECP is happy to announce the reunification of another family in New Los Angeles and we wish the very best to our new citizen." Rosalee isn't so sure about that. All the good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, but Rosalee and Lucky are mine. Post game, set in New Los Angeles.
1. Not My Brother

**Not My Brother**

 **a/n: "The EPC is happy to announce the reunification of another family in New Los Angeles. We congratulate the Mimeosome Center for their continued efforts, and wish the very best to our new citizen. We appreciate our community's continued forbearance in the delay of the Organic Redemption."**

 **Post game, all spoilers fair. WARNING: If you haven't finished Yelv's story line, GO DO THAT NOW, because that deserves to be played blind and I'm spoiling it hard before we're done. Swear free (see? I can do that).**

 **All the good stuff belongs to the geniuses of Monolith Soft, but Rosalee and Diego are mine.**

* * *

Lucky wasn't her brother. She knew that even before she met him.

"Come along, dear, and let's meet Diego," said the motherly woman leading her through the confusing and ugly corridors. Rosalee made a face, sticking out her tongue at the woman's back. She was speaking to Rosalee like she was some baby. It made Rosalee want to stomp and scream. But she wasn't the type to do that. Her mama always praised her, so proud. "Oh, my little Rosa, she's always so quiet, but she's no baby."

"I'm no baby, and I bet you're no nurse, you liar," muttered Rosalee to herself. Not out loud, but if the woman had bothered to look back, it would have been clear to read. Rosalee's mouth was in a pout, and her hands were tucked into fists, and she certainly wasn't following in a spritely and cheerful way. But she _was_ following behind this nurse impersonator, keeping close because she did not want to get lost. The main corridor was straight, but there were too many doors, all looking the same, with only numbers on them, tucked between banks of recovery pods. Most pods were mercifully shuttered. Rosalee wasn't a scaredy-cat, but that didn't mean she wanted to see anything gruesome.

The officious woman, clipboard in one hand and key card in the other, stopped at a door almost at the end of the hall. "Here we are. I'll just check first." She paused and looked at Rosalee. "It'll only be a moment, sweetie. Do you want me to get someone to stay with you?"

Ooops, she'd been caught scowling. Rosalee put on her best church face. "No, thank you," she said clearly. Never mumble, her dad loved to say that. She looked the woman directly in the eyes and tried not to blink.

The fake nurse smiled a fake smile, knocked on the door, and opened it immediately. She doesn't even bother to see if anyone wants her to stay out, thought Rosalee. Everything about her is a lie. Her voice is a lie, her knock is a lie. Most of all, telling me about my brother. The door closed and she was left alone in the hall.

Rosalee shifted from foot to foot, nervously. She tugged on first one pigtail, then the other. Should she have put her hair in braids? Were the workers passing her giving her funny looks? Did they know why she was here? Or maybe they thought she was lost, and they'd send her away. The hall was too cool for her to be sweating, she never sweat, never, but she felt a little shiver starting along her back. The moment was taking longer than she expected.

Rosalee stood up tall. Time to stop acting like a kid, even if they were treating her like one. Time to get ready for what came next.

Then, for a split second, she saw herself, very clearly, from the outside. An anonymous woman in Interceptor gear, aged maybe 24, black hair in swinging tight pigtails, large black eyes in a round face, and a nose slanted like the ones worn by the nobility in glyphs, no mistaking that nose. Her dad always joked she could have walked straight off of a Mayan temple, which meant that she must be a princess. It had confused her when she was little, and enraged her when she hit her teens and wanted nothing more than to look normal. But "normal" just means average, which is the same as mediocre. Nothing special. She'd take princess any day of the week now. Especially today. Today, she could use some of that royal cool, to stare down this lying official from the Mim Repair Center, and take care of the problem of whoever she was about to meet. Somebody who was not her brother.

She was not a baby, this was not her brother, and she knew what she was going to do.

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Finally, the door opened again and the official (not! A! Nurse!) waved at her. "Come in, dear."

The room was large, and full of people, mostly sitting, a few talking in groups. Reminded Rosalee of a waiting room for the Motor Vehicles Department, boring plastic chairs in colors that didn't quite reach cheery, full of people listlessly checking comm devices. All men, all looking about the same age as Rosalee, all colors. None of them had hair as dark as Rosalee's, though. See, she thought, can't even be right about that. The nurse scanned the room and made a tut-tut sound. "Diego?" she called. "Diego Lopez?"

"He's getting some sleep, ma'am," said a young man with a mop of yellow blond hair. He pointed to anther door to the right. His face was mean, all glittering blue eyes and tattoos, but his voice was surprisingly sweet. Rosalee tried not to scowl at him. Never blame strangers for things that went wrong. Another of her father's sayings, one she had more trouble following. The nurse was the exception, but Rosalee had good cause to hate her. Fake. Baby talker. Liar.

"I see. We'll go wake him up. It'll be a nice surprise."

See? See?! You wanted proof they weren't going to see her brother? Diego never liked being woken up. Honestly, was there a person on Earth that liked that? Rosalee gave a silent hiss, because the answer was, no, there wasn't a person on Earth. At all. Never mind that, the point was, if this guy liked a wakeup call, he wasn't her brother and she didn't even need to meet him to know that.

The two women stepped into a smaller room, lined with empty bunk beds. Empty except for two of the last ones. One had a chubby Asian man, curled into a question mark. The other had Diego.

Not. Diego. The hair was dark, short all around except for a long lick of bangs, and the face was lean, with wicked slivers of eyebrows mocking everything even from a sleeping face. Arms flung all which way, leg half off the bed. But not. Diego. This was a copy, not even a copy. Something that sort of resembled her brother, superficially. Diego was dead, and this was not him.

"Diego, dear, wake up. Your sister is here."

The figure took a deep breath and his eyelids lifted open gently. He looked up at them, without moving. Then, slowly, a grin sliced across his face. He slid upright and looked at Rosalee. Sure, his eyes were as dark as hers, as narrow as hers were round, and that smile was just as knowing as she remembered. No. Not remembered, not as knowing, not like Diego at all. Not.

"Hey," said Rosalee, trying to keep any emotion from her voice. Don't scowl, she reminded herself, you've been caught once already.

"Hey," said the man. Ha! That voice was all off, too high and soft. Whenever Rosalee used to wake him up, when she needed a ride to school or help with chores, he'd be a barking howling monster before he'd rolled out of bed. "Hey," he said again, deeper. Closer. But still no Diego. "I'm lucky you came for me, sis."

"You're lucky, sure. Come on, let's get this done. Is there any paperwork, ma'am?" Rosalee channeled her best impersonation of Iron Akulov, not her normal style but she could fake it for the next few minutes.

If the not-nurse was disappointed by the lack of emotional reunion between not-sister and not-brother, Rosalee didn't care. If the not-brother was disappointed, she cared even less. Suffice it to say, there was paperwork, mostly electronic but a surprising amount physical, and it was filled, filed, and finished in the next hour. She was practically dying of impatience when the official led them towards the exit.

"Are you sure, dear? About this?" the official asked, not for the first time. "It's wonderful that Diego here has family that cares about him, but usually our subjects stay together, as a way of supporting each other. You may not always find it easy."

"Thank you, ma'am. I know I'll have the center's support, and I'm not afraid to ask for it." The day Pathfinders surpassed Interceptors, yeah, then it would happen. "But it's something we need to start doing ourselves." They made their last goodbyes and the two siblings (not. Siblings.) walked out of the building and onto the Administrative Alley.

They'd never been alone, still weren't, surrounded as they were with passing humans and xenos and skells even, but this was the first time that they didn't have some Mim Center staff breathing all over them. Rosalee shook her head wildly and shuddered. Done. She had pulled it off without yelling or snarling or even frowning much. She looked over at her companion. He was glancing at her, not quite smirking, when he wasn't looking up, down and all around.

"Come on."

"Like I said, I'm lucky to have you, sis."

"You're Lucky. And I'm not your sister. Remember that, and we'll do fine. Come on, Lucky." And just like that, problem solved, he had a handle that she could bear to call him. She led him past BLADE tower, towards the elevator that led to the Residential Sector.

* * *

 **a/n: I started wondering about Rosalee, from her brief appearance in "Twitch Tales of the Whale/Music", and ended up being even more curious about her brother. Then this happened. This is actually two chapters, but they are so short, I didn't want to split them. Making them not really two chapters, come to think of it.**

 **Next up: The best tattoo job in New Los Angeles, and Rosalee loses it.**


	2. Three Arguments

**Three Arguments**

 **A/N: Rosalee proves that younger sisters can be just as bossy as older ones.**

 **One swear, small. Arguments, for sure. Post game, HARD SPOILERS to post credits and J-bodies. THAT SHOULD BE PLAYED BLIND, SO GO FINISH before reading further (no, honest, you deserve the best).**

 **All the good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, but most of these critters are my OCs.**

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She'd warned her roommates the night before. It had caused a raging argument among the five women.

"Rosie! You can't have some dude staying with us!" shrieked one.

"He's my brother," she'd yelled back. "You want him sleeping on a park bench like some Nopon?"

"Girls-only house, that's the whole point. None of that barrack bro-stink for us. Something nice, something simple. I'm not paying all this extra rent just to have this place turn into a hotel for strays." The ginger haired woman stopped suddenly, eyes wide. She knew she'd gone too far.

Rosalee wasn't insulted in the least, but she didn't let anyone see that. Use this to your advantage, girl, she thought to herself. "Marina, if you think for one minute…." Her raging response was epic, and would take way too many words, plus descriptions of small kitchen items being tossed around, not very pointy, but dramatic and slightly breakable. By the time the other three had calmed Rosalee down (she had to hide a smirk, never being angry to begin with) and bolstered a shaking Marina and picked up all the cutlery and mugs, the group had reached an agreement. Rosalee's brother was family, so he could stay, but he better find himself a new place to live, and pronto. And the siblings would have to pay double rent for the one room, split across the now 6-person household.

Rosalee judged this would hold them for 3 months, after which she could throw another temper tantrum if necessary. Probably not. She wasn't sure she could stand having this stranger in the house for 3 hours.

The two of them had reached the house to find the other women were waiting for them. Any possible objections had been overwhelmed by their curiosity to see their new roommate. "Girls, this is my brother, Lucky. Lucky, these are girls. Say hello and play nice," she snapped.

Introductions were made, and she watched her brother work his charm. Not. Her. Brother. Lucky was charming, polite, sweet, but vague. Different charm than Diego's, but just as effective. His looks weren't a handicap either.

"I thought your name was Diego," said Brenda, with a flutter of eyelashes.

"Well, yeah." He ducked his head and answered before Rosalee could start up. "New planet, new name. Seemed to fit. What'd'ya think?"

Rosalee was tired of it all. "Come on. Shut eye. You can make friends later."

Once the bedroom door was shut, he laughed. "You sure are bossy for a little sister."

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothing. But I'm right." He wandered around the room, poking at the few knick knacks, lifting up a manual on air filtration and putting it back down quickly. "You told them I was your brother."

"I'm not telling them the truth, and neither are you. They don't need to know you're a shiny bright. Not your fault that the ECP was and remains a bunch of liars. But don't you ever lie to me."

"Shiny bright?"

"Like a penny."

"What?"

"New coin."

"Coin?"

"Credit."

Lucky shrugged. It wasn't making sense, which really made it all fit with the rest of the day. "Well, whatever, thanks for taking me in. Hanging out there, in the center, it gets old."

"If they want to call you my brother, I'm not going to argue. Even though he's dead, I won't have his name and face being dragged around by some blank headed stranger. So, we're just going to pretend that you are normal, and I'm your sister, and things are as they should be."

"I do have a bunch of memories," he began.

"Spare me. I don't want to hear about lies, told you. We're keeping it this way. You're Lucky, I'm looking out for you, and the less we have to talk about, the better."

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Integrating into New Los Angeles came remarkably easy for Lucky. He knew the city within a few days, had made friends within a week. When they walked around, more people started to greet him than her, and he always responded with a lazy wave. He'd been taken on as a BLADE trainee, Reclaimers, not exactly dangerous work, but a lot of lifting and shifting. Diego would have run a mile before spending a whole day digging out a particularly embedded chunk of debris. Scratch that. He would have called a friend, and gotten a lift away from the site, and not returned for three days, leaving their mother frantic and their father splitting with rage and laughter. Lucky didn't seem to mind, although the roommates started to complain about him hogging the shower when he got back from a particularly dirty job. "Worth it, though. He's real guapo, hot even," mentioned one of them.

Rosalee tried to muster up enough anger to tell her to back off, but she wasn't feeling it. Everything about Lucky left her numb. The sorrow over Diego, the rage at the deception, those had burned out fairly quickly in the face of this generally pleasant stranger. All that remained was a nagging fear that his real condition would be revealed. This caused one of the few fights between the pseudo-siblings.

"I'm off, back in a bit."

"Lucky, I don't want you going to those meetings anymore."

"What you say, sis? I need them."

"They're just saying you need them. They're liars. If someone sees you keep going back to the Mimeosome Center, they might get suspicious."

"No one cares."

"People are nosy. People know you. We don't need that."

"Sis, it's cool. Even if people know that I'm a J-body, well, they're getting used to that idea."

"Don't use that word. I don't want anyone thinking you're something less than the rest of us. I don't want it to come out."

"It's not like I'm telling anyone. But I need these meetings."

"Why? You got me. You're set."

Lucky smiled and shook his head. "I got you, but there are things you don't want to know. How it gets so weird, knowing and not knowing at the same time. Things you can't answer, like what to do when my head won't work right. During a job, if that happens, it could be deadly, not just for me. The other guys, they know, they're going through it too. We help each other. Sis, I need to go. Back soon."

Rosalee was scared, to be honest. She knew more about it than most. Part of her first job had been at the Mim Center before she switched to Interceptors. That's how she got the dubious reward of having a family member restored to her before anyone else. Truth was, the organic redemption was a fail. Honestly, even the most patient were getting nervous about the delay. The administration was still trying, but a different way. The ECP was making new colonists from scratch, based on the best data they could recover. Some of the colonist profiles weren't completely destroyed, or so they told her. Some, like Diego, Lucky, would be pulled together from what remained, plus whatever they could pick from family and friends and other records. But these J-bodies, none of them were really real, true to any original person. Damned if they don't keep walking once you wound them up and set them going, though. Back at the start, that room full of men she'd seen, they were all going to be set loose, one by one, to replace the original population that kept getting itself killed off, one by one.

She'd signed off on Lucky, but she knew he was just as fake as the fakest of the batch. Her brother never made the Lifehold, not in any form. He'd never come near the Project while she was working there, except for once, early on.

Her mother had been so proud when Rosalee had started college, then had been so confused when she'd dropped out to join the United Government Forces. She'd fought so hard to see her daughter finish high school, get the grades needed to go further. Why stop school for this? But she had trusted her Rosa, and had believed her enough to feel proud about her choice, even if she didn't understand it. Rosalee had begged Diego to join with her, but back then he'd lived for his music. When had he ever not been fooling around with a guitar and the worst band members available? Actually, in their tiny town, he had to take the only band members available. He'd pushed them to play anywhere and everywhere they could, up and down the Central Valley, crammed into a customized van that was his second love. He even swung one gig not too far from the Project. At the Mel-O-Dee, dumb name for the dumbest bar, with fuzzy crimson wallpaper and a tiny disco ball. Rosalee and her friends made up about half the crowd, but they screamed and cheered and her bother looked as happy as if he were doing the half time of the Super Bowl. That was the closest he'd ever gotten to the Whale.

The last text she got from her mom, during the whole crashing end, said that Diego had jumped in his van and was trying to get their cousins, all stuck in Santa Barbara, safe away from the coast and bring them further inland. Like Bakersfield was going to be safe. But a little town, nestled in the foothills, no one would bother with that, right? They could stay safe there. She was stuck at the launch, loading, toting, running whatever job the Chief assigned her. She never knew how far he got, just that it wouldn't be safe, nowhere was safe, then nowhere was anywhere, everywhere was nowhere, "where" had no more meaning when you talked about Earth.

She knew they hadn't retrieved any records, hadn't magically found some backup. Lucky was not her brother, but no one better call him anything but a citizen.

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The last big fight happened right before Lucky moved out, and was built from the dumbest thing.

Rosalee had been out on an extended mission, following around a specialist xeno team trying to get information about Milsaadi. Rumors of the increasing importance of the silicon-based assassin race among the remaining Ganglion were worrying BLADE HQ, and this collaboration was supposed to measure the threat. It had been rough. The xenos were bad enough, weak and in constant need of care. Her Interceptor team had been joined by a Harrier team that had consistently made things even worse. The whole group was too small to make Cauldros safe, but too big to go unnoticed. They'd drawn fire from above and below, constantly. It got worse when one of the Harriers got it into her head to steal a Milsaadi skell. That had come very close to disaster, with a frantic run home with enemies that would not be shaken, all the way to New Los Angeles, ending with an actual skirmish at the BLADE tower prominence. They had won, sure, but it had been embarrassing to have the Secretary of Defense himself have to drop his coffee so he could help save their hides. The stolen skell had sunk into the blast gel after falling and bouncing off the covered highway, and Lucky would probably be fishing it out by morning. All in all, there was a lot of explaining to do, and she was glad that Akulov was the team leader and not herself. They'd kicked the rest of the team loose after a good two hours of debriefing, but last she saw, the Lieutenant was still standing there, explaining crisply in her regular snarl, with her shadow Evans beside her, not exactly helping with his apologetic voice, half whine, half snark, plus all that blast gel dripping off of him.

It wasn't the mission that had caused the fight. Bad as it was, she'd come home safe. Tired and grubby, in need of rest and a shower, but safe. It wasn't Lucky being worried about her or criticizing the mission. No, as stated before, it was stupid. She'd dragged herself into their room and spotted Lucky and completely lost it.

"What have you done to yourself?!"

Lucky smiled that slanty, superior smile that was so close to Diego's and stretched out his arms. "Like it?" He stood up and twisted around, to give her a better view.

Rosalee stared at him in horror.

"I got it done while you were away. I figured if I didn't like it, I'd get rid of it before you came home. But I like it."

From shoulder to wrist, his arms were wreathed in tattoos. Probably all along his back and chest, since they seemed to creep out from under the tank he was wearing too. A few flickered on the base of his neck, the trailing edge of larger images. And talk about bright: green and purple on one side, yellow and orange on the other, glowing blue at the peak of his shoulder.

"What have you done?! You've ruined …" Rosalee couldn't say another word. She couldn't admit that, wrong though it was, she had gotten used to seeing something that sort of looked like her brother. But Diego had never, ever gotten a single tattoo, probably the only wanna-be rock star in California with baby clean skin.

"It's Mira. Check it out." Lucky started to give her the tour, although she could barely listen. Nightglow Forest on the right arm, complete with telethia sweeping over his shoulder. Oblivia on the left, with the crook of his elbow serving as the gap and the Great Ring on his biceps. He started to take off his shirt, so she could admire Primordia plains and New Los Angeles (directly over where a heart would be). "The guy wanted to put the moons someplace else, but I don't need bad jokes on my ass. They're on my back, all five of them, from Majora to Littlepon, right over Sickle Rock."

"Stop. Stop! STOP! You look like a clown! You look ridiculous! Everyone is gonna stare at you."

"It looks awesome, and I'm proud of them. I got two friends to design it, and the best tattoo guy to slap it on. It has everything. I even have a Nopon or two hiding on my elbow." He craned his neck over his right shoulder, trying to spot the critters.

"I bet you blew all your credits on this trash!"

"Yup. Like I need so much else."

"You're going to need as much to get rid of it."

"Nope. It stays."

"Diego would never had messed up his body like that. He hated…" Rosalee stopped again, staring at this painted stranger in horror.

Lucky looked at her with distant eyes. Calm. Unmoved. "He hated needles. I know. But I don't. I almost remember it, but not really. You keep telling me I'm not your brother, and you're right. I thought you'd be glad of proof."

Rosalee did remember. One time, a screaming Diego had to be held down by two nurses and their mama while they tried to get a flu shot into him. Rosa had taken her shot first, and smiled a tiny superior smile at her big brother, daring him not to make a scene, with eyes that already knew he'd lose. Her smile didn't grow as he completely lost it, a big boy of 9 flailing like a baby, but it didn't vanish. The only cloud was that her mama had bought them both ice cream afterwards, even though Diego clearly hadn't earned it. She looked at Lucky now. He was wearing the same tiny smile.

"I'm trying to change up my look, sis. Make me into something I really like. I was thinking of growing a beard, maybe." He stroked his lean chin and tilted his head back thoughtfully.

"You do that and I will kill you. No. You want to ruin yourself, go ahead, fine, look like a clown. But don't try to get closer to Diego after that." Another memory, one she realized they also shared in some weird way. Diego had worn the smallest beard since leaving high school. Once he said wanted to be a beatnik. Her mother and Rosalee weren't quite sure what he meant, even after they looked it up. The pictures had been so flat, and most of them even without any color, which made them hard to understand. They certainly didn't understand the stuff he started reciting like poetry. "You farm families, and teachers, and teamsters, and cops, and cooks/You rock 'n' rollers, and holy rollers, all of you who work so hard/You full-time moms, you with the hands that rock the cradle, you all make the world go round/And now our cause is one." They'd been glad to have him go back to screaming his music in the garage. But the soul patch had stayed, and had looked good, she had to admit.

Lucky shrugged. "Okay. Just a thought, anyway. I like the tattoos better. You better go take a shower. Not to be mean, but you stink, sis."

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 **A/N: Poetry courtesy of Sarah Palin, America's greatest living beat poet.**

 **I'm slowly choosing names for the moons: Majora, Umbra, TBA, TBA, and Littlepon. Any suggestions/corrections will be appreciated.**

 **The specialist that stole the skell is named Case, and lives in my head, coming out only when my real Cross is busy. If I play XCX again, I'll run her, as an Interceptor. Or I'll just write the fic: that skell theft happened, it's now canon, right out of the Ganglion Antropolis, because Case got her name from head case.**

 **Next up: Another fight, with music! Bonus: Mara (yeah! I love writing Mara).**


	3. Talent Night at the Repenta

**Talent Night at the Repenta**

 **a/n: Lucky still needs his little sister to take care of him. And then a thing happens.**

 **Spoilers are mild, swears are absent (? if I missed one, tell me, this set doesn't need them).**

 **The good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, which alas in this piece consists only of Lara Mara and the Repenta Diner.**

* * *

Lucky moved out a few days later. Neither had talked about the argument much, but she'd swear that wasn't what made him leave. He'd been asking around for a while, and had finally gotten, well, lucky. A guy at the meetings knew a guy that worked with a guy in need of a roommate. Turned out, that last guy also knew Rosalee, from back on the Whale, so it was a done deal almost before Lucky contacted him. Rosalee was both angry and relieved. Angry that Lucky was moving out, moving on. Relieved that he was going someplace that was still connected to her. Besides, she knew his future roommate and expected Lucky to be back within the month. Gino had a temper on him that made fire ants look mellow, and cycled through roomies at a rate of 6 per year, even with the housing crunch.

Lucky, however, did just fine. Always smiling that sly smile, always easy, he didn't mind anything thrown at him. Gino could rage, and Lucky would just ride it out. No evil could stick on him, and after a while, Gino stopped trying to push him out, even if he still was a cursing madman half the time. Rosalee swung by, regularly, to make sure that Gino wasn't going too far, just in case. He didn't scare her, either.

They settled into a routine that felt mature, if slightly empty. Rosalee invited Lucky over for dinner once in a while. They'd meet for pizza (usually with Gino tagging along. That man was lonelier than he'd admit). She'd send Lucky a message, now and again, and if they were both working in the city, they might stop for lunch together. Rosalee sometimes forgot about Lucky, and her worry about his situation being revealed almost vanished. He was a stranger, sure, but not somebody she needed to be ashamed of.

Late one Friday, her comm device pinged. "Rosalee Lopez?" She didn't recognize the voice, the face, or the name. The location, yes. Mediators' camp.

"There's a young man here. Says he's your brother. Nice tattoos, very nice." The man arched an eybrow. "Ring a bell?"

"I'm… yeah, I'm his sister. What's the matter?"

"He was involved in a little tiff at the Repenta. Want to come over and vouch for him?"

"Are you saying he needs to be bailed out?"

"Vouching is fine, and sounds nicer. Sorry to wake you up, but he asked me to call you."

"I'm right there."

Rosalee marched into the Mediators' camp, ready to start her own tiff. She didn't know who'd be her target. In no particular order she could list: the unknown Mediator, Lucky, and whoever happened to be handy. As she entered, a prone-sized human was being led away by a large group of nagging Ma-non. The man didn't seem to notice any of them, paying all his attention to the smallest Ma-non female, who looked to be almost in tears and who was holding onto his hand like she might never have pizza again if she let go. She recognized the exiting human as a friend of Gino's, and added her brother's roommate to the list of targets.

Another large human form swooped up before her and beamed. "Lara, Mediator Extraordinaire. You must be Sister Rosalee. So glad you came promptly."

"My brother. You said he got in a fight."

"Not so much got into one as was rolled up along with everyone else. I don't think the child had anything to do with starting it, short of breathing. Nasty business. Some patrons threw around insults, regarding your brother's, ahem, status. Nasty words. Another scrawny fellow threw a punch and it all went up. Standard Repenta, really. With the number of full moons we have, it's a miracle that it doesn't happen daily. Get it? Mira-cle?"

"Gino."

"Oh, so you know him, too? Interested in bailing, er, vouching for him? We do want to talk to that one again, although your brother doesn't need to come back. Pity. I hear he has a very sweet voice."

"How'd you recognize me?" asked Rosalee, suddenly.

"Your eyes. I remember night skies like that, back home, that dark and deep. You share that look. And the nose." He laughed. "This a-way. And don't worry about his face. He's been checked out, and he's fine."

Lucky was sitting on a bench, next to Gino, looking more than slightly worse for wear. Black eye, cut cheek, his short hair shooting all which way. More than anything, he looked embarrassed. Gino, looking even worse and not at all embarrassed, was rubbing his knuckles and muttering a stream of expletives, pure and undiluted by any other noun or verb, but low enough that you'd have to listen hard to get much effect. Rosalee stopped in front of them. Did she put her hands on her hips and glower? Yes, yes she did. Lara nodded approvingly.

From the far side of the camp there was a sudden rising noise of shouting and shoving. Lara shook his head. "Hon-est-ly. That's the other group of fighters. Nasty, like I said. I'll just pop over and spoon feed them clues on expected behavior. Don't run off without saying goodbye."

"Hi, sis." Lucky gave her a slanted smile, and winced. By morning, he'd have a fat lip to match his eye.

"You look swell. Let's go." She paused to look at Gino. "That guy, Lara, said I could vouch for you. You want that?"

Gino practically snarled at her. "Shot my boss a note already, but that little snot is taking her own sweet time. She's probably…" And here he got rather crude about what (and who) she might be doing. Possibly accurate, possibly not. Rosalee figured he had it covered, and if he didn't, he probably deserved to sit on that bench all night. She and Lucky walked out to the entrance to the camp, and waited. Rosalee had a suspicion they wouldn't have to wait long, and she was right. Lara the Extraordinary (what did he think he was, some tyrant?) showed up within the minute, all smiles and just a soupçon of paperwork. He waved them off with a cheerful, "Toodles."

She hauled Lucky back to her place, not exactly quietly. All the way back, she kept starting a rant, then stopping, then restarting it. She never managed to get much past variations on the topic, "What were you thinking?" He didn't say much back to that, so she still didn't know. In her room, he sat quietly on her bed while she did a little first aid on the wound on his cheek. "That Repenta, it's bad news, and that Gino, he's worse, and I just don't know. What were you doing there anyway? Why were you fighting?"

"It was talent night. I wanted to try something."

"Try getting your head bust open. Stupid." She stopped, suddenly. "Talent night?"

"I wanted to sing something. A song I thought up."

She looked at him, appalled. "You didn't tell me?"

He closed his eyes for a second, before answering. "I wanted to try it first, see if it was any good. I didn't want to embarrass you if I sucked, you know?"

"Is there nothing sacred? Nothing about Diego you won't ruin?"

"Sis, I'm sorry, but I can't stop it. Parts of me, they feel real. Like singing. Like you. I needed to check it out."

Rosalee stopped, bandage still in her hand, looking at this stranger. A pause. Another. Finally, she said, "And?"

"It was good. My friends told me they liked it, anyway, while we were waiting at the Mediators. I didn't get to finish it, though."

"Your friends. Ha. Nice bunch. Gino and whoever."

"Some Reclaimers, and some guys from the meetings. When those punks started throwing insults around, they were a little surprised how many people they were slagging, and not just me." He smiled too broadly, and winced.

Rosalee went back to fussing over Lucky's face. "Hold still or you'll get a scar!"

"Scar would be romantic, no?"

"No. Too many BLADES got way better scars and better stories. My brother would have had a fit, having his face messed up. He was vain, that beautiful boy, fixing his hair, fixing his looks." She blinked quickly.

Lucky laid his hand against hers, trapping it against his cheek. "Tell me about him," he said quietly.

Her voice almost broke. "So you can copy him better? Just try to, you can't. No way."

"He was my brother too."

One more memory, one she didn't know if he shared. Their abuella had never called Diego anything but Abner, his middle name. The name of her son, their uncle, killed long before they were born. He'd been a soldier, still a young man, come home safe from danger, then killed trying to keep the children of the neighborhood from endlessly shooting each other. Years later, strangers would come to her abuella's house and beg forgiveness, better yet give thanks, showing off pictures of graduations and weddings and futures they owed to her son.

Rosalee looked at Lucky, at his eyes, sly and clever, so different from her open round ones, but still linked to hers. She looked at his noble if currently battered profile, a Mayan emperor or maybe just his musician. And she started to tell him about their brother.

* * *

 **A/N: Gino ended up being the last one to be bailed out, because his boss (my mythical OC Lila) had other priorities (work related! Honestly, get your minds out of the gutter). He has nothing else close to a friend. Well, there's the over-sized Ricky Bobby, but he was busy apologizing to the Ma-non (especially little Twyleth) for getting into trouble.**

 **Thus endeth Rosalee & Lucky. I love these guys, and they surprise me endlessly.**

 **Next up: the return of Alexa and Doug's BrOTP, with more fluff this time. So. Much. More.**


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